No Gothic here, boy, nothin, my rescuer lectured me. Baroque, hah! Maybe a couple painted chests, about it … herders, man. Nomads. Stone Age to Stalin. Mud huts to housin projects. Tartars’d flip, they came back … There’s a few wooden churches, for appearance’ sake, synagogues’re fucked too, Jews didn’t stay, not here, not a one, closest ones now’re all the way down in Bratislava … nothin out here cept for bolshevism, an that’ll be here forever, construction … hey, a museum, an there’s that big Ruthenian artist … I missed the name, since we nearly ran over a cat … plump thing, just lyin there, claws tearin the air … didn’t wanna move. It was black, what else. And then it got up and ran across the road.
I dozed off in the train, just on the edge of a dream, enjoying the feeling … now, my sweet, now we’ll pack up an move on, wherever … maybe the sea, maybe not, the day rocks along … maybe saffron, maybe some other fragrance … I had the compartment to myself.
Take care, Smoothy, wherever you are, you tall-tale teller and observationist, you dissectionist you, and thanks … tonight I’m taking a holiday, I’m giving it to myself, I want to spend it in solitude.
The conductor stepped in, thoughtful fella, doused the light, it was hurting my eyes, I rubbed my eyelids … we go flying into a tunnel, I hand him my ticket, he’s got on a silly hat … buttons with an insignia, a uniform … light whipped out of the tunnel and suddenly Hunter stood before me with a vacant expression, clutching a thin cane, spinning it around his wrist … I know one end of the cane’s dull and the other’s whittled to a point … I jump up, bang my head on the window, wake up … good gracious, what is it, sonny, someone says … a granny’s sittin there, I’m all sweaty … bad dream, here, take a cough drop, freshens the breath … No thanks, I sat back down … old lady looks like Mrs. Macešková, flower-print scarf, like my grandma had … but I had to go to the bathroom, I leaned over the sink a while, told the mirror: Say hi to Černá, washed up … the granny wasn’t there anymore, guess I got the wrong compartment, maybe went the other direction, I donno. I rode the rest of the way without incident, in daylight.
South Station, where Bohler the savior used to do his hunting, it was lively. Too lively. There were even numbered cops here now, characters swarmed in the corners. Loitered off to the sides. I had a cup of coffee and then did something I’d never done in my life. I bought Černá flowers. I didn’t know how she’d take it. Roses, yeah, but that’s somethin else. They also had wreaths and candles, I just made a face.
I ran up the stairs to the attic. She wasn’t there. Nobody was. The flat looked tidied up. Like nobody’d ever lived there. Never knew we had a vacuum. I sat down.
Hours rolled by. They rolled over me, and they were heavy. They were dark. I tried the drawers … spotted some papers, but didn’t peek. That’s a no-no, they’d beaten that into me, taught me that. She hadn’t gone shopping or out for a walk, she’d’ve left a note, after all we’d talked. The flowers lay on the floor. I left the vases empty. It was still day.
Now, Černá, now that I’m rid of the spooks, now that I’ve busted outta the trap, the big trap … why now?
16
I TIED HER HAIRS. LET’S GO! THEY TOLD ME. WHO MY SISTER IS. I SEE IN THE WOODS AND … IN THE MOUNTAINS. WHAT I HAVE TO DO. THEIR WELL. RAVEN’S WING.
Again outside it slowly darkened, again came the divide … I sat there, something begun without having finished, riding on along its own axis, sucking me in, I felt a hole, an uneasiness, inside me.
Lighting up a cigarette, I hunted for her scent in the armchair she sat in, held the fork and knife she ate with. Bile climbed into my throat and I felt the light pressing down on my eyes. I let it blind me, and groped my way through the hallway, the foyer, where it was dark, without turning on the light.
In the bed I found several of her hairs, and tied my fingers firmly together, in twos. In the bathroom I found more hairs in the drain. Raven hairs. She liked water and cleanliness, but she couldn’t get rid of every trace. I tied the hairs under my nails, I could feel them better when they hurt. They smelled nice even though they’d been in water, water that had flowed over her skin.
It was evening, I looked out the window, people were going along the street, artificial people too, mutants, from this high up you can’t tell them apart, but some gave themselves away by their gait, their stealthy way of moving. This is my street, my neighborhood, my city, I said to myself, but nothing belongs to anyone, not for long. From the pub next door I heard a fight, drunkards spilled out into the street, beneath a lamp’s sparse light. In a puddle next to the lamppost stood a dog. Slurping rainwater. Cracked walls, metal bars on windows. Trashcan, gutter, and a cloud of steam rushing out of it. Obstructing my view of the billboard with the actors and the poster of the politician. The rails gleamed, shining coldly as a tram went clanging past. So this is the way she’s supposed to go, I said to myself. This way, by herself? And who else? It can’t be good for anyone, it makes no sense, nobody could ever want this. This city, this street, such a lonely walk.
I lit another smoke and wandered around the flat listening to music. I emptied my pockets of all my maps, medications, rolling papers, knives, razors, boxers, cigarette holders, straps, notebooks, games. I attempted to rip a hole in the parquet floor to get at the stash of machine guns and pistols, the metal parts gleamed so bright my eyes ached. I drew back the bowstring and it snapped with a whizzing sound, slicing through the skin on my wrist, interrupting the tattoo. Then I took some nails and, rocking Brother Nail on my knees, cleaned his hide with a rusty knife. It woke the dogs in the building, they joined in the ritual. City degenerates, but that’s in their cells. Yeah sure, I know that every second … someone else is perishing, having the soles of their feet seared, being crushed in a straitjacket, thrown to the pigs.
Maybe … it’s a possibility, my turn’ll come too … now you, someone, lying in a cold eye, in the dark, a day, an hour, a minute before being tortured, and then it comes, sooner or later it comes, you hear your own scream, and in one bright heavy second of blinding pain you absolutely definitely know you exist. No one escapes it, in one of your lives pain will come and you’ll know, acutely and positively, that you exist, it will be a single instant and it will hurt, to let you know how reality feels.
That’s Bog. So you’ll know that pain is real and all the rest is only scenery, delusion and illusion, the first cigarettes, bashful kisses, and idle banter. And why you … why not me? I already knew the answer.
So take a moment from time to time to give at least a caressing glance to your minesweepers, your grandstand, your guns, slowly I run the burning spear through me, sun blazing down on my helmet, the dried scabs on my leather jacket again ooze blood and pus, alive. Where are you, little sister. It was dark, the only light in the room the pale glare of metal … glowing … stole a chunk a uranium off those wiseguys, discreetly purloined it, it worked … an I knew who I wanted to give it to. Maybe.
I lay on the bed and waited, sat back on my heels and waited, a second before she turned the key in the lock and the door swung open I knew. I scented her nearness, was it a scent? When she moved, in all her living beauty, did she split the air ahead of her, sending forth a wave? I embraced her, squeezing her so hard I didn’t hear the answer, she was saying something, troubles, we’ve got troubles, I’ll help you, I’ll do whatever you want, I said, by then we were lying next to each other. As the sun came up I saw her face, I wanted to get inside it, I would’ve liked to see her skull. I wanna tell you somethin … somethin has to be done … yes, there is something we have to do, I bit her lip. She rested the soles of her feet on my shins, lying across my thigh bone, I almost couldn’t feel her, the weight was pleasant. I could feel her breath on my face. Then she moved over, dissolving into the walclass="underline" Be careful, here I come, I heard.